Elements of Change
by caithream
Summary: Hell had changed his brother, and Sam has to help him relearn what was forgotten.


_i._

It's the dead of winter when Sam brings Dean back through the gates of hell, bleak and gray and biting. The dirty, melted snow slushes underneath his shuffling boots, a radius free of ice as the unbearable heat licks out from the confines of the gate. It's a strange sensation, the burning at his back and the freezing wind whipping at his face, but it's nothing worth noticing, the only thing worth feeling being the deadweight in his sooty arms.

Dean's breaths are more like desperate shudders, but that too is nothing. Not when it is – _was_ – so much worse.

It's the dead of winter and everything in Sam's vision is black and white, muted, falling into the background where it belongs, his single, pure, white-light determination of _find Dean_ now suddenly becoming _save Dean_, because his own brother could very well be too far gone to even realize he's been found.

Sam refuses to put Dean in the backseat of his own car, too far away to touch and to see. Dean smells of smoke and ash and death, blood crusted or still flowing freely nearly everywhere across his naked skin but Sam needs him near, needs to touch him and know he's real and here, so he places him in the front seat as gently as he can, head cradled in Sam's outer shirt so Dean's blood doesn't smear on the frosted glass.

Sam wishes suddenly and desperately, when they arrive, that the comforter wasn't so scratchy and stained and unfit for a healthy person to get a few mediocre hours of rest, let alone bring back someone from the brink of death. From the depths of hell. But that too gets pushed away after hours and hours of so very lightly wiping away every single trace of hell from his brother's physical body and stitching up every gash, every puncture through the pale skin, every deep and terrible wound that Sam was unable to prevent.

Dean doesn't cry out. Doesn't even stir. He sleeps like the dead.

Sam thinks he sleeps when his body can't hold on any longer to consciousness, shutting down because he won't do it himself. Behind the thick, musty curtains it gets bright, then dark, then bright again, then dark. Days pass, a week or more, maybe. He doesn't know. He watches his brother.

Finally there's a movement beside him, so unnoticeable Sam wouldn't have discerned it if he wasn't so familiar with the stillness and the silence that echoes throughout the room, taking up every corner. Dean's fingers twitch again, and Sam knows it's the calm before the storm.

The screaming is nothing like Sam has heard before, not from Dean, not from anyone. Fear and anguish and despair bubble up in his own chest, but he puts his hand over Dean's mouth – hates himself for doing so – covering the inhuman noises passing over his brother's lips, not just because it scares him. There's a fleeting thought that maybe he should have been prepared with some kind of sedative but the idea just increases the waves of nausea flowing through him already.

"Dean." A hand around his jaw and cheek, voice soft against the muffled scream that goes on and on. "Dean, I'm here. It's me. You're okay, you're—" Not okay, not in any kind of realm of okay. Dean's wild eyes roll in his head, showing no recognition that he even hears Sam, or maybe even knows who Sam is anymore. It's unbearable. Too goddamn unbearable.

And just like that, Dean falls silent and limp. Shaking, a sour taste in his mouth, Sam almost follows suit.

Days repeat themselves in much of the same way as they did before Dean woke, now however with the added periods of hoarse screams until Dean's throat is raw and all that comes out is a pitiful wheeze. Dean's skin is hot, feverish, feeling as if he's still wrapped in the arms searing heat, but when Sam deftly sticks the thermometer under his tongue the reading comes out normal. Dean unconsciously kicks the blankets and sheets completely off of him in the middle of the night and Sam wakes up to the bed trembling from his shivers. But no matter how many times Sam tucks the sheets back around Dean's shoulders, they always end up at the end of the bed, kicked as far away from him as possible.

The heat went down straight to his core, Sam thinks wildly. Burning himself out from the inside out. Maybe like a phoenix. To burn up into ashes, only to be born again.

He tries not to sob when Dean flinches away from the warmth of Sam's own fingers.

--

Too cold, oh God, his toes are cramping. He scrubs his eyes and distantly remembers turning the thermostat down further than it had right to be with it barely in the double digits outside, but it can't've gone down that far, God it almost feels like—

Sam's eyes snap open to focus on the motel door, opened to the pre-dawn light, and he doesn't look at Dean's bed, doesn't have to.

Dean is huddled and small in a little snow bank piled against molding stucco of the motel wall, shivering so hard Sam thinks it's a seizure at first. The snow is melting into little trickles of icy water around Dean, and Sam almost slips as he grabs under his brother's armpits. Dean makes a moaned protest as Sam leans him against his chest, his head butting agitatedly against Sam's shoulder. And yet despite the frigid temperatures outside, despite the fact that Dean's shirt and bottoms are nearly soaked with ice cold water, his skin is still hot to the touch, an ever-burning furnace that seems to refuse to be put out.

Dean just wants to quench the fire burning from within, but Sam doesn't know how to let him without it killing him first.

_ii._

something stirring in the air the _hssh_ sound over by the dark black window feels good and cool but not cool enough never cool enough flames fire stench dark hurt pain _pain_ every time eyes close but so tired always so tired

water

never one single drop of water to cool the tongue just burning and burning just blood slick and warm down the throat

need water needwater

dark black window no shadows no light only dark but there's no

but there's no one but there's no one HERE

alone in the dark again alone ALL OVER **AGAIN**

--

Every step he takes away from the decrepit little bungalow fills his stomach with acid and his feet with lead. He didn't want to, not in the slightest, deliberated it over for more than three days, but he had completely run out of food for Dean and himself and needed even more gauze and bandages to staunch the still-sluggishly bleeding wounds that had marked his brother a veteran of hell. Sam was on his way to his breaking point himself from nerves and worry, the decision to leave a near-catatonic Dean in bed not helping.

He scrubs a hand over his eyes and picks up his pace a bit.

Sam was raised to listen to his gut instinct, and by the time he's exiting the drug store he nearly breaks out into an all out run back to their place.

He pulls the door open as slowly as he can manage (doesn't want to startle Dean, just in case), flipping on the light, but then gapes a little as he steps inside, his heart suddenly jumping to his throat.

The room is a disaster area. He'll call it for what it is, for what it was even before the old TV set had been knocked to the floor and exploded in a thousand pieces, before the bathroom door had been pulled off the upper hinge, before the bed had been stripped, mattress lying half on the floor, debris, clothes, furniture everywhere. Dean isn't any better, wasn't _getting_ any better, and now Sam's gone and fucked it all up even worse than it was before.

It takes just a second of frantic searching around the wreckage before he sees his brother backed into the corner on the opposite side of the room, his too-thin frame tight with fear, Sam's bowie knife in a white-knuckle grip in his fingers. Dean's fever-bright eyes aren't even on him, looking instead somewhere behind Sam and to the left, and Sam is two very short steps away from not being able to hold it together anymore.

"Dean," he says, low and cautious and walks so very slowly towards him. In his mind he doesn't associate Dean's behavior to that of a skittish animal, he won't, because Dean was damned and burned and ripped apart and tortured for him, and to think of his brother as anything less, even in this pathetic state, is nothing short of the worst kind of indignity.

Five feet away from him and Dean tries to frantically climb into the wall, knife held out at arms length, glinting sharp in the bare yellow bulb no longer covered by a lampshade.

"Listen—Dean, listen to my voice. You're in Wyoming, near Cheyenne. It's February, it's—it's a Tuesday night. Dean, you're here, okay? I'm here with you now, I swear to God I'll never let anything—Dean, just—"

Moving slower still, repeating words and letting the syllables roll softly yet clearly across his tongue. Sam reaches his hand up, and in that moment Dean jerks away hard with a grunt and tries to slash the knife downward. It kills Sam how little effort it takes to stop it.

"Dean." He cups Dean's sharp jawline in his hands as the knife falls away. "Dean, look at me. You're not—I've got you, okay, I've got you." Dean's eyes are wide and panicked, still looking behind him, _through_ him, and Sam can't help but give him a little shake, fingernails digging only slightly into Dean's hollow cheeks.

And then—and then Sam watches as Dean blinks, squeezing his eyes shut for only a moment, opening them again to stare directly back at him.

"S-sam," he pants. "_Sam_."

Sam very nearly comes apart at the seams.

Dean's hands are on his face, his shaky fingers running down Sam's nose and across his lips as if he was blind. And maybe he was, Sam thinks fleetingly, only now finally being able to see reality for what it really is. Dean's fingers cling desperately to the side of Sam's face and the scruff on his neck and he says again forcefully, "_Sam_."

"I know," Sam chokes, pulling the distance between them closer.

"You left," Dean whispers, raspy and a little slurred. _You left ME_, Sam wants to shout back, but he doesn't because he knows what Dean means, and how fucking stupid could he be, leaving his brother here utterly alone in the dark when that kind of torture was all Dean had known for God knows how long. It makes him sick to his stomach.

"I'm sorry," Sam says simply, because he is.

He guides Dean back to his bed and he moves pliantly under Sam's fingers. It's surprisingly easy to let all the thoughts racing in his mind go, to just let himself _be_ as he settles beside his brother, utterly exhausted but better than he's felt in months. Together they fall into a calm rhythm of breathing, lulled finally to sleep by each other's warmth.

_iii._

The cemetery is only a brisk seven minute walk from where they are. And Sam, Sam is literally aching to stretch his legs again.

Dean is only slightly more accustom to Sam leaving every now and again, though hardly at all for long periods of time. But Sam can be quick. He's done this his whole life, after all.

The shovel cuts neatly through the melting earth, little patches of snow still here and there, but for the most part it's still bitingly cold out. Sam works mechanically, his mind still back at the bungalow, hoping Dean is still sleeping deep, like he left him.

Finally he breaks the rotting coffin open and pours liberal amounts of salt and their own brand of accelerant on the barely-there corpse.

The shock of the mangled shout as he drops the match into the grave is almost enough to make him fall face first into the hole, but he swings his arms out ridiculously for a moment and manages to catch himself. Adrenaline is rushing sickly through him, but Sam ignores the feeling, shoving it aside and he instead pulls out the Glock from against his back and moves slowly, silently towards the noise.

Dean is huffing and puffing behind a thick oak tree, back scraping against the rough bark and face ashen.

"Jesus, Dean, _what—_." The utter _shock_ of Dean having left their place is making Sam's brain stutter, combined with the fact that Dean is shaking so hard his teeth are chattering and Sam has _no clue_ what the hell his brother was thinking.

"Don't think I won't still kick your ass for this," he mumbles as he tries to lever Dean up, but Dean makes a noise and grabs at Sam's jacket.

"N-_no_," Dean manages, and the determination Sam sees on his face is like a shadow from better times, darker and more desperate. His fingers skim along Sam's pants pockets, looking for something, then fumble at the pockets on his jacket. Sam's eyes widen a little when Dean pulls out the box of matches, but when he tries to take them back from him Dean nearly shouts the same stuttered word at him again.

So Sam watches, his heart thumping so hard his chest hurts.

The tiny match shakes frantically in Dean's fingers and it's a long second before he strikes it against the coarse surface on the outside of the box.

It flares to life in less than a second, but Sam's eyes are on Dean, watching as his face twists and his eyes become dull and faraway and utterly _terrifying_, and Sam knows where he is, what he is trying to do, and it's just so like _Dean_ to feel like he has to do this, as if Hell is something he has to overcome like a bad phobia.

The flame is burning down the wood, getting closer to Dean's fingers, and Sam blows it out before it does. The rising smell of sulfur burns his nostrils.

"You don't—" Sam starts, absently noticing the clammy sweat roll down Dean's temple.

"No," Dean says a third time, mustering his last bit of energy. "Have to, Sammy."

At this point Sam could care less about the still-open grave, so he leaves it in favor of trying to calm Dean's shakes and getting him back to his bed. Not that Dean hasn't spent enough time sleeping a dent into the mattress these past few weeks, but he still exhausts easily and Sam would be lying if he said he wasn't worried.

("I went to _hell_, Sammy," he can almost see Dean rolling his eyes, but his brother isn't the same as he was before, and Sam's not sure he'll ever be again.)

The next time Sam leaves him to pick up another round of groceries, he comes back to find Dean sitting cross-legged on the bed, every lighter and every box of matches that had been conveniently placed in their duffels, jean pockets, and jackets in case of any emergency scattered around him, Dean himself pale and sweaty yet again, that same eerie look of determination on his face. Sam doesn't smell any sulfur this time around, and he doesn't know what that means.

He doesn't say anything, though, just looks at his brother for a long moment and then goes to the kitchen to put away grape jelly, luncheon meat, and a bottle of Coke, keeping an ear out but not interfering. If this is the way Dean wants to do it, well. As much as Sam wants to stop him from this kind of self-inflicted torture, he won't. He knows Dean wouldn't fuck around with this. He'll just stay close enough to mend the cracks back together if it comes to it.

There's the dry scraping rasp of the wheel and a shuddering gasp and then nothing. Sam stills but doesn't turn the corner quite yet. Almost a minute goes by before he hears the lighter being flicked again, a slow series of _click clicks_ before it stops.

Curiosity gets the better of him. He comes into the room to see Dean staring unblinkingly at the yellow-orange flame from the lighter, unmoving. Sam hesitates, not knowing if interrupting at this point would be a good thing or a bad thing.

"Dean?" he says softly. "Are you—" But no, he can't ask that. Not yet. Not for a long while, maybe.

Dean blinks, losing that faraway look. And then he does something that Sam thought he'd never see again.

He smiles.

Small and a little pained, but it's a smile all the same.

The next time Sam goes to the store he picks up a slender, white candlestick. He tries not to cry like a big dumb girl when he watches Dean with it, making the fire come and go as he pleases.

--

Sam is up to two hundred and thirty-seven ways as to how this is a really bad idea.

Dean was the one who found it. Of all the things he could have seen in the newspaper Sam brought back. His mode of communication still mostly consists of pointing, nodding, and facial expressions, no use for words when gestures will do, but he somehow made his forceful point across in checking the story out.

Which Sam does. The EMF lights up in the woods just before he hears a faint moaning cry echoing around him that makes the hair on the back of his neck stand straight.

No real grave marker for the teenage girl who was murdered by her uncle during the Depression, just a rotting post by little creek just outside the woods.

Dean's barely got enough strength to stand upright for more than fifteen minutes at a time, let alone dig up a grave in the chilly air, but still he insists on coming. Sam just makes him put on four layers i_and_/i wraps a cheap (but heavy) blanket around his shoulders. Dean's nose scrunches up a little and Sam can swear he hears him grumble under his breath but he doesn't take it off, at least.

Sam digs and sweats and Dean sits watch with a shotgun between his knees, head jerking and eyelashes fluttering when he nearly drops off a time or two. Sam finally hits the cheap wooden barrier with the shovel and breaks his way through. He steps out of the shallow grave and readies it for burning.

Dean stands at the ready with a box of matches in hand, not even trembling a little. He flicks it once, twice, and the flame erupts from the tip, illuminating them both.

The look of confidence on his face is still delicate but it makes Sam choke a little all the same. Dean throws the match into the earth and it all ignites, the wailing on the wind slowly fading out to the hiss and crackle of the purification below.


End file.
